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In the Oval Office, Donald Trump and Michael Flynn Discuss Martial Law
Jack Holmes, Esquire
Holmes writes: "It seems bad, for instance, that the Secretary of the Army just felt compelled to issue a statement declaring the U.S. military won't be doing Coup Things."
Seems like we could have seen this coming based on every single thing Donald Trump has said and done in public life.
n November 19, we suggested the president may need to be impeached and removed from office in the lame-duck period on the basis he will never stop trying to steal the election and, even if he fails, that he will do untold damage to the country leading up to January 20. This kind of thing was considered alarmist by the Calm, Savvy Observer crowd, who seem to have been asleep for many years, or who at the very least refuse to see—perhaps as a sort of defense mechanism—what is right in front of them, and who certainly lack imagination with regard to what still may come screaming down the pike. It seems bad, for instance, that the Secretary of the Army just felt compelled to issue a statement declaring the U.S. military won't be doing Coup Things.
It should now be blindingly obvious, and really has been since Donald Trump started yelling that the election would be rigged months before it took place, that he will never concede defeat and acquiesce to an orderly transfer of power. You don't need a PhD to see the president is a degenerate narcissist constitutionally incapable of processing a fresh L, but even putting armchair psychology aside, he simply has never accepted responsibility for anything in his life. He has never even accepted the premise that there are features of observable reality he cannot twist and bend to better serve his interests. Why would he start now, particularly when he believes he and his family face enough legal jeopardy when he's stripped of the protections of the presidency that he's considering leaving a pardon under everyone's seat at Christmas dinner? Nobody ever went broke betting that Donald Trump will attempt the next most deranged and dangerous stunt on the sliding scale of depravity that forms the backbone of his earthly existence, all in ceaseless servitude to his own pathological self-interest. The president, on the other hand, has gone broke many times and never paid the piper.
And so we arrived this weekend at the next mile-marker on the road to ruin. The president descended to the next level of right-wing loony-toon hell and summoned Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office for a meeting of the minds, wherein this cavalcade of traitors to the American republic discussed instituting martial law and seizing voting machines by Executive Order for "investigation." (Let's pause here for the mandatory, if grating question: WHAT IF OBAMA DID ANY OF THIS SHIT? OK, let's move on.) Some are presumably voting machines run by the same two companies currently threatening to sue right-wing media outlets, and possibly Powell, for defamation. This authoritarian spasm would be necessary because Giuliani already failed to convince the Department of Homeland Security to seize the machines. The New York Times reports Trump is eyeing Powell for a special counsel role investigating voter fraud, an idea even Giuliani opposed, but the president is talking about giving a high-level security clearance to a lawyer with whom his campaign just weeks ago severed all ties on the basis that she was a few bulbs short of a chandelier.
But the real cream of the crop is retired Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, a true American patriot who in 2016 served as senior adviser to an American presidential campaign and transition team while simultaneously on the payroll of the Turkish government. He also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians, for which, along with "any and all possible offenses" related to the Mueller probe, the American president pardoned him. Now, Flynn is returning the favor by going on one of the TV channels for people who think Fox News is too squishy-liberal and calling for the president who pardoned him to institute martial law and do a mulligan election, this one run by the military. While Trump will recognize this approach from his time on the golf course (and he's getting a lot of rounds in these days considering he's simultaneously yelling the American election was rigged against him by the shadowy forces of the Deep State and Communist Venez-China), we are forced to ask whether this new election would be free and fair. Just as we have to ask whether Sidney Powell's investigation of voting machines seized by presidential decree would be entirely above-board. I mean, even some of the cultists are expressing alarm at what is now happening in the Oval Office.
The Calm, Savvy types are by this point apoplectic. But none of this will work! The coup is stupid! Which brings us, again, to two points: even a Stupid Coup can work, and even if it doesn't, it will cause huge damage to the republic. It already has, even as the president's legal eagles have caught losses in 50-plus court cases. 126 House Republicans signed onto that ludicrous Texas suit seeking to simply throw out the election. This is now mainstream Republicanism—that elections which end in the other party winning power simply do not count. What many people are not ready to come to grips with is that this may be the first death throe for the American republic. Absent massive, transformative change to law and political economy with the next administration, we are well down a path to tyranny. Trump has opened the door, and if nobody finds a way to close it, somebody else will walk through it.
A good start in terms of closing it might be instituting real consequences for the president's behavior. State and federal prosecutors should follow the evidence and charge Trump and his family with any crimes they have committed, but in the meantime, the Congress has ample evidence to begin another impeachment probe. The president has relentlessly abused his power in an attempt to subjugate the national interest to his own, and the two are no longer compatible, if they ever were. Even if Senate Republicans will not convict him, House Democrats should impeach him again. Put it on the record. He still has more than 30 days left in the china shop.
Los Angeles citizens wait in line at a food bank. (photo: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)
Congress Passes $900 Billion Coronavirus Relief Bill, Ending Months-Long Stalemate
Deirdre Walsh, NPR
Walsh writes: "The Senate acted swiftly Monday night, in a 91-7 vote, to approve more than $900 billion for coronavirus assistance, shortly after the House of Representatives passed the package."
The aid comes after months of partisan sniping over what elements should be in a relief measure that virtually all lawmakers on Capitol Hill argued was long overdue.
The measure now heads to President Trump's desk. In order to avoid a shutdown, since federal agencies would have run out of money at midnight Monday, a 7-day stop-gap spending bill was also approved to allow time to process the combined relief and annual funding bills.
The 5,593 page legislation extends economic assistance as millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet as cases of COVID-19 are surging across the country. It includes another round of direct stimulus checks — this time for $600 per adult who are in certain income thresholds, and the same amount for children. It provides an extension of enhanced unemployment insurance benefits for up to $300 per week and lengthens the maximum number of weeks. The package includes $25 billion in rental assistance and extends a ban on evictions that was scheduled to expire at the end of January. To address the increasing number of those with food insecurity, $13 billion was added to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
To help small businesses worried about closing their doors, the legislation has another roughly $300 billion for the popular Paycheck Protection Program and expands the kinds of businesses who can qualify for forgivable loans and grants. Live venues that have been shuttered during the pandemic were eligible for $15 billion in grants.
As hospitals continued vaccinating priority groups with the two vaccines recently authorized by the FDA, the bill provided $68 billion to support vaccine distribution and COVID-19 testing costs.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was the lead negotiator for congressional Democrats defended the package, which was half of what she had been holding out for over several months, saying "we want to do more." She pledged that the compromise represented "a first step" and more would be coming after President-elect Joe Biden took office.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized Democrats for insisting on a larger package for months and said, "with a new President-elect of their own party, everything changed. Democrats suddenly came around to our position that we should find consensus, make law where we agree, and get urgent help out the door."
Although the overall contours of the bill came together last week, rank and file lawmakers waited for days as the top four leaders — Pelosi, McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. — spent days closing out issues. Particularly, they worked on a compromise on a last-minute sticking point over language Republicans wanted to add to limit the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department's lending authority.
Both sides praised the themselves for working across the aisle to get something done, but action came just days before the holiday break — one Congress had scheduled to take more than a week earlier. President Trump was absent from the talks, leaving negotiations largely to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer, one of the members of the bipartisan group of centrists that crafted a proposal that was ultimately used as the framework for the deal proclaimed, "this is as close to a Christmas miracle as you can find in a normally polarized Washington."
The scramble to assemble the final $2.3 trillion package frustrated many members who complained that they didn't have enough time to read the massive bill before voting on it. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted "this isn't governance. It's hostage-taking."
Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee similarly vented on Twitter that it would be impossible to read the entire bill and said in his 10 years in Congress he's never had to sift through a bill this long. He said because only the small group of leaders drafted it, the majority of members were still learning about its contents.
Leaders paired the relief bill with the annual $1.4 trillion spending bill, which included measures that had been negotiated over months by the House and Senate Appropriations panels. Members of those committees did note that agreement on many items like pay raises for members of the military, increased money for veterans and a deal on border security measures.
But the deal also represented the last train moving through the lame duck session of Congress. So riding along were some significant policy bills that had bipartisan support, such as legislation to address surprise medical billing, a measure creating Smithsonian museums for American Women's History and American Latinos, and a water projects bill.
Protesters spray mace toward police as they attempt to get into the Oregon State Capitol during a special session of the state legislature in Salem, Oregon, on Monday, Dec. 21, 2020. (photo: Abigail Dollins/Statesman-Journal/AP)
Right-Wing Protesters Attack Police With Pepper Spray as They Try to Storm Oregon Capitol
Justin Vallejo, The Independent
Vallejo writes: "Anti-lockdown protesters that swarmed the Oregon state capitol were pushed out by police as bear spray and pepper balls flew between the two factions, according to reports and footage from the scene."
About 300 members of the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer and other groups arrived at the “Reopen Oregon” rally calling on governor Kate Brown to lift pandemic restrictions as lawmakers met in a special session to discuss stimulus and vaccination distribution measures.
Protestors used bear spray against police while entering the building before they were pushed out by police using pepper spray, according to the Statesman Journal, whose photographer was shoved by protestors while capturing the event.
Salem Police Lieutenant Treven Upkes told the Journal other chemical munitions may have been used by the crowd.
"When people attempted to come in to the building they actually used pepper spray and other things on officers. In return we used those to separate ourselves and get them to hold that spot. So I don’t know what all was used but I know at least pepper ball was used.
"There may have been other chemical munitions used by the crowd as well on us that seemed to have acted similar to …a CS gas.”
Two arrests were made, with Oregon State Police identifying Ryan Lyles, 41 as charged with trespassing and assaulting a police officer.
Another arrest was made after protesters smashed glass doors trying to enter the building while the demonstrators were heard throughout the day chanting “arrest Kate Brown” and enemy of the state.
In a news release, Oregon State Police confirmed the protestors first entered the Capitol about 8:30am using chemical agents on two different occasions as police used “inert pepper ball”.
“When there were enough resources available between OSP and Salem Police Department, they started to push the crowd out of the building, when another individual used bear spray against police officers,” the statement said.
“The Oregon State Police encourage people to exercise their first amendment rights, but it must be lawfully. Please, discontinue the acts of vandalism or destruction of property. If you commit a crime you will be subject to arrest.”
While they still searching for the first protestor to have deployed a chemical agent when entering the building, Oregon State Police announced on Twitter late Monday that a second person had been taken into custody. It was unclear if he it was the person who deployed the chemical agent.
Blue tear gas used by police was captured on video by Statesman Journal reporter Virginia Barreda, who said most scattered away from the building but remained on the ground.
As they disperse they can be heard in the video chanting “stand your grand”, “this is America”, “shame on you”, “tyrant”, and “traitors of Oregon State and the US Constitution.”
A patient hospitalized with COVID-19. (photo: Belga)
ALSO SEE: Walter Reed Scientists Checking if Britain's
Mutant Coronavirus Can Resist Vaccines
There's a New Strain of the Coronavirus Spreading in the United Kingdom. Here's What We Know About It.
Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY
Rodriguez writes: "A new strain, or variant, of the coronavirus is spreading across the United Kingdom sparking fear across the globe."
It has not been detected in the U.S. yet, but it’s drawing attention as vaccines are being rolled out.
American health care workers began getting inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine a week ago. This week, Moderna’s vaccine became available after receiving authorization for emergency use from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Friday.
These vaccines are considered crucial to ending the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, where more than 317,000 Americans have died. Here's what you should know.
What’s new about this coronavirus strain?
The World Health Organization said the variant was identified in southeastern England as early as September and had been detected as far away as Australia.
Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist with UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston, said one or two mutations to the original coronavirus pop up every month or so, but this new variant has a whopping 17 mutations.
"We've never seen so many mutations happen so fast," she said.
What's most concerning, Troisi said, is that eight out of the 17 mutations seem to affect the “spike protein” found on the surface of the virus, which allows the virus to attach itself to host cells and infect them.
“Some of the mutations might make it easier for the virus to enter the body,” said Dr. Prathit Kulkarni, assistant professor of medicine in infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine.
English officials say the variant appears to be more infectious than the original.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the infection was “out of control” in Southern England.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who described the new variant as 70% more transmissible than the original, ordered tighter restrictions and dropped a much-anticipated relaxation of rules that had been set to kick in across much of England ahead of the holidays. More than 16 million people are now ordered to stay at home in London and southeast England, and socializing elsewhere in the country is now restricted to Christmas Day only.
Kulkarni said modeling data found a recent steep rise in COVID-19 cases in the U.K. from this new variant, which could suggest it's more transmissible. However, an increase in human interaction could have also contributed to rising cases.
U.S. officials stress this point.
"I think scientifically to date there is no hard evidence that this virus is more transmissible," Moncef Slaoui, co-head of Operation Warp Speed, said during a press conference Monday. “There is evidence that there is more of it in the population."
Can tests for the COVID-19 virus in the US detect this new strain?
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test should still test positive for this version of the coronavirus, experts say, and could also distinguish between the original and the variant.
“It appears to be the case that the vast majority of tests should be unaffected in their ability to detect this particular strain of SARS-CoV-2,” Kulkarni said.
Troisi said PCR tests detect parts of the virus's spike protein, specifically three proteins in the original coronavirus. However, it will only test positive for two of the proteins in the new variant.
Genetic sequencing is a more reliable way of finding out if someone is infected with the variant, but Troisi said it takes sophisticated laboratory work that is more time intensive.
"We're early in detection," she said. "If we were missing people who were infected with this mutation, we wouldn't know it right now."
Will the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines protect against it?
Experts say there’s no evidence to suggest the vaccines wouldn’t work to protect against the variant found in the U.K., however, ongoing surveillance is needed to confirm this.
Vivek Murthy, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for surgeon general, on Sunday urged Americans not to let concerns over the new version shake their faith in vaccination.
“There’s no reason to believe that the vaccines that have been developed will not be effective against this virus as well," Murthy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Eric Cioe-Peña, a physician and director of Global Health, Northwell Health, in New Hyde Park on Long Island, New York, says the variant shouldn't delay the timeline for a return to a version of "normalcy" later this year.
"I think this is still to be seen how big of a deal this will be," Cioe-Peña said. "Mutations are random, and sometimes they fizzle out when we are expecting them to become dominant."
Troisi emphasizes current information is based on early data and will likely change as ongoing studies learn more about the new coronavirus variant.
"There's no reason to panic right now; we have enough to worry about," she said.
The U.S. Justice Department announced new charges against a third Libyan man in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. (photo: Reuters)
DOJ Unveils New Charges Against Suspect in 1988 Lockerbie Bombing
Eric Tucker and Michael Balsamo, Associated Press
Excerpt: "The Justice Department announced new charges Monday against a Libyan bombmaker in the 1988 explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, an attack that killed 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground."
The charges were revealed on the 32nd anniversary of the bombing and in the final news conference of Attorney General William Barr’s tenure, underscoring his personal attachment to a case that unfolded during his first stint at the Justice Department. He had announced an earlier set of charges against two other Libyan intelligence officials in his capacity as acting attorney general nearly 30 years ago, vowing that the investigation would continue. Though Barr had not appeared at a press conference in months, he led this one two days before his departure as a career bookend.
In presenting new charges, the Justice Department is revisiting a case that deepened the chasm between the United States and Libya, laid bare the threat of international terrorism more than a decade before the Sept. 11 attacks and produced global investigations and punishing sanctions.
The case against the alleged bombmaker, Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, is for now more theoretical than practical since Masud is not in U.S. custody and it is unclear if he ever will be, or if the evidence will be sufficient for conviction. But it nonetheless represents one of the more consequential counterterrorism announcements from the Trump administration Justice Department.
“At long last, this man responsible for killing Americans and many others will be subject to justice for his crimes,” Barr said.
A breakthrough in the investigation came when U.S. officials in 2017 received a copy of an interview that Masud, a longtime explosives expert for Libya’s intelligence service, had given to Libyan law enforcement in 2012 after being taken into custody following the collapse of the regime of the country’s leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
In that interview, U.S. officials said, Masud admitted building the bomb in the Pan Am attack and working with two other conspirators to carry it out. He also said the operation was ordered by Libyan intelligence and that Gadhafi thanked him and other members of the team after the attack, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.
While Masud is now the third Libyan intelligence official charged in the U.S. in connection with the Lockerbie bombing, he would be the first to stand trial in an American courtroom.
After Barr in 1991 announced charges against the two other men, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, the Libyan government balked at turning them over to the U.S. The country ultimately surrendered them for prosecution before a panel of Scottish judges sitting in the Netherlands as part of a special arrangement.
Al-Megrahi was convicted while Fhimah was acquitted of all charges. Al-Megrahi was given a life sentence, but Scottish authorities released him on humanitarian grounds in 2009 after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He later died in Tripoli.
An FBI affidavit unsealed Monday says Masud told Libyan law enforcement that he flew to Malta to meet al-Megrahi and Fhimah. He handed Fhimah a medium-sized Samsonite suitcase containing a bomb, having already been instructed to set the timer so that the device would explode exactly 11 hours later, according to the document. He then flew to Tripoli, the FBI said.
Masud remains in custody in Libya, but Barr said the U.S. and Scotland would use “every feasible and appropriate means” to bring him to trial.
The New York-bound Pan Am flight exploded over Lockerbie less than an hour after takeoff from London on Dec. 21, 1988. Among the 190 Americans on board were 35 Syracuse University students flying home for Christmas after a semester abroad.
The attack was the latest flare of tension between Libya and the West. In the years before the flight, for instance, Libya was blamed for the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque that killed two American soldiers and injured dozens of others. The complaint against Masud admitted to being involved in that bombing as well.
It wasn’t until 2003 that Gadhafi and Libya formally accepted responsibility for the Pan Am disaster, with the country offering a compensation deal with the victims’ families. Gadhafi agreed to renounce terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, starting a rapprochement that began the following year with the re-opening of embassies. Sanctions were lifted and, in 2006, the Bush administration removed Libya from the U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.
The warming of ties did not last long, however, and disintegrated quickly after the Arab Spring began to take hold across the region in 2011. In 2012, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed on attacks on American diplomatic facilities in Benghazi. The U.S. closed its embassy in Tripoli in 2014.
Besides Barr, another key figure in the Lockerbie investigation was Robert Mueller, who was the Justice Department’s criminal chief at the time the first set of charges was announced. Mueller would later become FBI director and special counsel in charge of the investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.
The Russia probe produced a rift between the men after Mueller complained to Barr that he had mischaracterized the gravity of his team’s findings in a letter that he made public before the investigative report was released.
A demonstration in Malaga, Spain, last month in support of Sahrawi rights in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony. (photo: Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images)
Donald Trump Has Just Traded Western Sahara Like a Victorian Colonialist
Eoghan Gilmartin, Jacobin
Gilmartin writes: "The outgoing president bought Morocco's agreement by endorsing its ownership of Western Sahara - making the US the only major state to rubber-stamp an occupation regime condemned by international law."
The Trump-brokered deal between Morocco and Israel normalizes relations between the two states. But the outgoing president bought Morocco's agreement by endorsing its ownership of Western Sahara — making the US the only major state to rubber-stamp an occupation regime condemned by international law.
n what may be his last major foreign policy initiative as president, on December 10 Donald Trump announced a US-brokered agreement that will see Morocco become the third Arab country since August to normalize ties with Israel.
Following deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the White House hailed this agreement as “advancing regional stability.” But, as Saharawi journalist Ahmed Ettanji tells Jacobin, its real effect is to “legitimize two occupations — that of the Israeli occupation of pre-1967 Palestinian territory and that of the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.”
Under the agreement, the United States becomes the first major power in the world to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the illegally annexed Western Sahara — a move which flies in the face of numerous UN resolutions and a ruling from the International Court of Justice.
Colony
Covering an area the size of Britain, Western Sahara is Africa’s last colony — that is, what the United Nations designates as a “non-self-governing territory.” The Saharawi people were denied independence in 1975 after former colonial power Spain reneged on its promise of a referendum on the country’s future status, instead signing the tripartite Madrid Pact which carved up the territory between Morocco and Mauritania. About half the Saharawi population fled to neighboring Algeria to escape the subsequent Moroccan invasion.
Today, close to two hundred thousand refugees continue to live in camps along the border. Thousands more have been tortured, jailed, and killed for resisting the occupation since the 1970s. In Freedom House’s annual ranking, Western Sahara is listed as the seventh-least free territory in the world — just one point above North Korea.
Trump’s cynical intervention — announced via Twitter — did have the unintended consequence of renewing international attention on a conflict largely unreported by Western media. And it comes as the conflict is heating up again. A 1991 cease-fire between Morocco and the Polisario Front — the main Saharawi pro-independence movement — broke down in November. Daily exchanges of artillery fire are now taking place along the 2,700 km defensive sand wall (or berm) that divides the territory. For Saharawi Voice‘s Elbu Sidahmed, “The decision [to recognize Moroccan sovereignty] blows apart any chance of the US credibly mediating the conflict.”
Yet the wider context for Trump’s formal recognition of Moroccan annexation is the West’s decades-long complicity with the occupation regime. One basic condition for ensuring the economic sustainability of Morocco’s hold over Western Sahara is the exploitation of its mineral wealth and other natural resources by corporations from over forty countries.
For Ettanji (cofounder of one of the few media organizations operating out of the occupied territories, Equipe Media): “The United States, France, and Spain have not been supporting a solution to the conflict, quite the opposite — they have aided the occupier in undermining our basic rights and in plundering our resources.”
EU Hypocrisy
Indeed, this didn’t all start with Trump. A clear example of this international complicity is the European Union’s aggressive trade policy in the region. In December 2016, the EU’s highest court issued a landmark ruling that the 2012 free trade deal with Morocco on agricultural and fisheries products had no legal basis to include Western Sahara. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) concluded that Western Sahara had a “separate and distinct status” from any country in the world “by virtue of the principle of self-determination” and must be regarded as “a third party” when it came to such bilateral treaties. As a third party, it could not be legally subject to these treaties without “the expressed consent of its people.”
The ruling represented a particular threat to the lucrative fishing trade. Spain imports 100,000 tons of Moroccan-labelled fish a year at a value of €1.6 billion — though much, if not the majority, of this is generated from fishing in the occupied Saharawi waters. Similarly, Morocco has become a key exporter of fish oil and fish meal to the EU — with €44 million worth of fish meal from Western Sahara passing through the German port of Bremen alone between 2017 and 2019. At the same time, 90 percent of the catch from European trawlers operating in Moroccan-controlled waters comes from fishing in the Saharawi zone — with the EU making a €52 million a year financial contribution to Morocco in exchange for access.
In this sense, rather than seek to apply the ECJ judgment (one which invoked basic principles of international law), the EU’s response was to renegotiate a new fisheries agreement with Morocco to explicitly include Western Sahara in its scope. As a recent report from Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) explains, the EU justified this by committing to undertake a process of “consultation” with the “concerned population” — something qualitatively distinct from the legal requirement of receiving explicit consent from “the people” of the territory.
Moreover, the consultation process itself was also highly restricted: all eighteen groups whom the commission invited to take part supported Morocco’s position on the conflict. The WSRW lays out how this was concealed by the European Commission in a report on the trade deal that was sent to the European Parliament and national governments. This document included, among the names of the stakeholders who were supposedly consulted, eighty-nine Saharawi civil society organizations that, while not invited to participate, had sent a letter condemning the consultation process itself.
“The double standard is incredible,” declared WSRW coordinator Sara Eyckmans as the European Parliament approved the new deal in February 2019. “One day we observe EU politicians advocate for rule-of-law and democracy in countries like Hungary and Venezuela. The next day, those same politicians openly vote to ignore the rulings of the highest court in the EU . . . The EU has no right — legally and ethically — to steal the fish from the Saharawi people in partnership with their Moroccan occupiers.”
Occupation Inc.
For Sidahmed, this is only the tip of the iceberg. He tells Jacobin: “Pretty much every country that says it supports human rights and international law is helping to plunder Western Sahara today — beginning with New Zealand and India, which continue to import conflict minerals . . . while companies like the British Windhoist and German Siemens continue providing Rabat with infrastructure support in the occupied territories.”
Western Sahara’s large reserves of phosphate, a key component in modern fertilizers, have been exploited since the 1960s — with Moroccan state-owned phosphate company OCP taking control of the massive Bou Craa mine in the wake of the occupation. In 2018 exports were worth US$164 million, but this figure fell to US$90 million in 2019 as Canadian fertilizer giant Nutrien chose to halt imports to the North American market. Its move came after a number of institutional investors divested from the company, citing concerns over the legality of the imports. Among OECD countries, New Zealand now stands alone in the continued importation of the conflict mineral — with purchases totalling US$29 million in 2019.
Yet a number of European corporations do play a crucial role in facilitating Morocco’s mining operations at Bou Craa. For example, in 2013 Siemens installed a park of twenty-two wind turbines which supply the mine with 95 percent of its power while another German company provides maintenance services on the world’s longest conveyor belt which ferries the phosphate 100 km across the desert to the coast. Siemens is also the sole supplier of wind turbines to three other large-scale parks in the occupied territories that are owned by the king of Morocco’s renewable energy company Navera. A fifth park is planned in conjunction with Siemens and Italy’s Enel Green Power — which taken together with the other four will have a combined power of 850 MW.
A whole host of other extractive activities are also currently ongoing in Western Sahara. For decades Spanish companies have exported industrial quantities of sand from its former colony, particularly to the nearby Canary Islands, to be used in building works, on golf courses, as well as in the construction and renewal of its artificially sandy beaches. Huge agri-business plantations, largely owned by the Moroccan monarchy, and various Moroccan and French companies have left underground water reserves in the Dakhla peninsula severely depleted — to the detriment of the local population. Exploratory oil and gas drilling has also been undertaken by various French, American, and UK companies while Texas company Crystal Mountain had been mining and exporting salt to Europe from within the territory until the end of 2017.
As Miguel Urbán, a left-wing member of the European Parliament, notes, “the illegal occupation, as well as Morocco’s illegal wall, are being paid for by the Saharawi’s own resources . . . with the territory being turned into a Wild West for multinationals — in which anything goes.”
A Return to War
On October 21, scores of Saharawi civilians engaged in a peaceful sit-in blocking a major highway in the Guerguerat buffer zone along the Mauritanian border. This left two hundred trucks stranded — most of which were carrying fisheries and agricultural products. “Saharawi people see this road as a route through which the natural resources of Western Sahara are plundered, so blocking it is blocking the plunder,” Sidahmed tells Jacobin. As food prices soured in neighboring Mauritania as a result of the trade stoppage, the Moroccan army entered the buffer zone to violently disperse the protesters — thus violating the terms of the twenty-nine-year-old cease-fire.
In response Polisario forces engaged the Moroccan troops, ferrying the civilians out of the area, before declaring the cease-fire null and void. The Polisario Front is recognized by the UN as the political representative of the Saharawi people and is affiliated to the social-democratic Socialist International. From its base in neighboring Algeria, it has launched a series of attacks on fortified Moroccan positions along the sand berm in recent weeks, but Morocco’s wall, the longest defensive barrier in the world, makes any meaningful military gains highly unlikely — not to mention Morocco’s technological and numerical advantage.
Yet both Ettanji and Sidahmed underscore how the cease-fire status quo had long become unsustainable for the Saharawi people. “Regarding whether armed struggle is a viable option for gaining independence: the UN (and now the US), have made it clear that peaceful means will definitely not work,” claims Sidahmed. “After twenty-nine years of peaceful struggle, and winning legal cases in various courts stating Morocco has no right to Western Sahara, the international community has only emboldened Rabat. Meanwhile, the world forgets that the Saharawi people still exists.”
The end to the sixteen-year war in 1991 had been negotiated on the basis of a joint commitment from Morocco and the Polisario Front to hold an independence referendum within one year. Yet attempts to organize such a vote have been systematically sabotaged by Morocco, which has also continued to populate the region with Moroccan settlers. A wave of nonviolent protests in 2010 (which Noam Chomsky posits as the start of the Arab Spring) ended with deadly violence at the Gdeim Izik protest camp as Moroccan security forces stormed the site in the middle of the night, leaving eleven Saharawi dead and hundreds injured. Nineteen leading figures in the movement have been handed twenty-year and life prison sentences — with their convictions largely based on testimony extracted under police torture.
“We are living in an open-air prison. It has been many years since the Sahara has known peace, and so most of us have welcomed the return to war — which might at least change something,” Ettanji explains in a phone interview from the Saharawi capital El Aaiún. He and his wife Nazha El Khalidi, who is also a journalist, had been placed under house arrest for a number of weeks in November. He tells Jacobin that “we [journalists and activists] are under constant watch. Surveillance has increased considerably since the end of the cease-fire and if you walk around the city you can see a large police and military presence everywhere.”
A People Betrayed
It remains unclear whether Joe Biden will reverse the United States’ position on Western Sahara, which effectively seeks to legitimize “the takeover of one African nation by another” according to academic Stephen Zunes. As with his statements that he will not reverse Trump’s decision to move the United States’ embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the president-elect might decide against alienating a key regional ally, in this case Morocco.
Yet even if he does, a more permanent solution to the conflict is still needed. Such a solution is only possible if the Saharawi people can exercise their right to national self-determination, including regaining sovereign control over its natural resources and mineral wealth. For now, that remains a distant prospect. It likely remains so, as long as Western powers see their economic and security interests in North Africa best served by a continuation of the brutal occupation.
The health impact of microplastics in the body is as yet unknown.' (photo: Butterfly Inc.)
Microplastics Revealed in the Placentas of Unborn Babies
Damian Carrington, Guardian UK
Carrington writes: "The particles are likely to have been consumed or breathed in by the mothers."
Health impact is unknown but scientists say particles may cause long-term damage to foetuses
icroplastic particles have been revealed in the placentas of unborn babies for the first time, which the researchers said was “a matter of great concern”.
The health impact of microplastics in the body is as yet unknown. But the scientists said they could carry chemicals that could cause long-term damage or upset the foetus’s developing immune system. The particles are likely to have been consumed or breathed in by the mothers.
The particles were found in the placentas from four healthy women who had normal pregnancies and births. Microplastics were detected on both the foetal and maternal sides of the placenta and in the membrane within which the foetus develops.
A dozen plastic particles were found. Only about 4% of each placenta was analysed, however, suggesting the total number of microplastics was much higher. All the particles analysed were plastics that had been dyed blue, red, orange or pink and may have originally come from packaging, paints or cosmetics and personal care products.
The microplastics were mostly 10 microns in size (0.01mm), meaning they are small enough to be carried in the bloodstream. The particles may have entered the babies’ bodies, but the researchers were unable to assess this.
“It is like having a cyborg baby: no longer composed only of human cells, but a mixture of biological and inorganic entities,” said Antonio Ragusa, director of obstetrics and gynaecology at the San Giovanni Calibita Fatebenefratelli hospital in Rome, and who led the study. “The mothers were shocked.”
In the study, published in the journal Environment International, the researchers concluded: “Due to the crucial role of placenta in supporting the foetus’s development and in acting as an interface with the external environment, the presence of potentially harmful plastic particles is a matter of great concern. Further studies need to be performed to assess if the presence of microplastics may trigger immune responses or may lead to the release of toxic contaminants, resulting in harm.”
The potential effects of microplastics on foetuses include reduced foetal growth, they said. The particles were not found in placentas from two other women in the study, which may be the result of different physiology, diet or lifestyle, the scientists said.
Microplastics pollution has reached every part of the planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People are already known to consume the tiny particles via food and water, and to breathe them in.
Their effect in the body is unknown but scientists say there is an urgent need to assess the issue, particularly for infants. In October, scientists revealed that babies fed formula milk in plastic bottles are swallowing millions of particles a day. In 2019, researchers reported the discovery of air pollution particles on the foetal side of placentas, indicating that unborn babies are also exposed to the dirty air produced by motor traffic and fossil fuel burning.
The Italian researchers used a plastic-free protocol to deliver the babies in order to prevent any contamination of the placentas. Obstetricians and midwives used cotton gloves to assist the women in labour and only cotton towels were used in the delivery room.
Andrew Shennan, professor of obstetrics at King’s College London, told the Daily Mail it was reassuring that the babies in the study had normal births but “it is obviously preferable not to have foreign bodies while the baby is developing”.
Elizabeth Salter Green, at the chemicals charity Chem Trust, said: “Babies are being born pre-polluted. The study was very small but nevertheless flags a very worrying concern.”
A separate recent study showed that nanoparticles of plastic inhaled by pregnant laboratory rats were detected in the liver, lungs, heart, kidney, and brain of their foetuses.
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